Aviation in India have a big issue with alcohol among aircrew.

India is the first country to mandate alcohol checks for aircrew, and for a good reason. There has been at least 100 incident in the last 3 years where pilots has been caught with alcohol in their blood before flight.

In august this year two pilots, of Air India and Jet Airways, have been suspended for four years by DGCA after they were found drunk on arrival of their overseas flights in India.

This is possibly the first time that pilots have been tested positive for alcohol during tests conducted soon after operating a flight. As normal practice, pre-flight checks are conducted on pilots.

The rules implemented by DGCA states, With regard to pre-flight breath analyser examination, if a crew member tests positive for alcohol consumption and refuses to undergo the test for a second time that individual would be kept off flying duty for three months.

In case, a crew member tests positive for alcohol consumption post-flight, then that person would have to immediately surrender his or her license.

In 2015 there was 43 cases of pilots having tested positive for alcohol during preflight medical tests, and 2016 is not looking better.

There is a obvious problem with the general view on alcohol consumption in India, that creates the this problem for the aviation industry.

Even with mandatory alcohol checks before flight there is still a big problem, one can just fantasize how many incidents there would be without any checks……..